Torn Apart By The One I Loved
by bluespades
Summary: Clove, in mutt form, personality completely altered. She knows Cato in no way, but Cato does, and the sight itself is painful enough.


**A/N: Short one-shot on Cato's death.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games.**

I scramble to the top of the Cornucopia. The lovers from 12 are behind, screaming, fearful of the muttations. I sweep my gaze on each one of them, and I realise something oddly familiar about some. Then it hits me. They're all the dead tributes, the ones whom we killed and now hate us. Yes, I can see it in their eyes, their real human eyes, in their jaws, pulled tight and showing sharp white canines concealed within. Their coat, the colour of the tributes' hair.

Then I see her. The small one with dark hair and wild eyes, staring me straight in the face. Rearing up its hind limbs, glaring at me with contempt and hatred, snarling. Clove. Is that really her? "Clove..." The words come out of my mouth in a strangled whisper. Just the sight of her like this fills me with pain. I never really knew her very well. We were just two tributes thrown together to fight to the death. Yet we took a liking to each other. It was really my fault, I had volunteered right away. It was that rash decision that made me regret everything that has ever happened since. But I took revenge, just as I vowed to. I hunted down her killer. And now the District 12 lovers, the cause of her death, are right beside me.

I could use these mutts to my advantage. Or similarly, _they _could use it to my disadvantage. The mutts claw at the Cornucopia, which is dripping with the boy's blood. He seems weak enough. While the girl is preoccupied with taking out some mutts, I grab hold of her lover and watch the blood spurt out of his leg wound. His face starts to turn blue, and I can't help a smug smile. The girl whips around, arrow loaded, pointed at my head.

"Shoot me and he goes down with me." I hadn't planned it that way, really. I was going to kill him first and then I'd knock her off the horn while she was crying over his body. But this seems a great plan as any. By the desperate look on her face, I know she won't sacrifice him for her victory.

_Face it, Twelve_, I think. _I win this time._ But something's wrong. The boy uses his last ounce of strength to draw a cross on my hand with his blood. A cross? What's that supposed to mean? Then I realise. I'm the target. But it's too late. The tip of the arrow pierces my skin and the pain shoots through. The boy is yanked away from me while I struggle to regain my footing on the blood-slick horn. No, this isn't happening! I'm going to win this! But my foot slips and I feel myself falling and hitting the hard ground. The snarls of the mutts, now level with me on the ground, rush towards me. I quickly get up and fish my knife out from inside of my armour. Clove's knife.

I manage to kill off any mutt that touches me, but begin to regret killing so _many_ tributes_._ So many, way too many. Fortunately I have my armour on. The mutts don't hurt my body at all, and instead I sink my knife into their coat, watching it get splotched with blood. Double-killed tributes. It's my victory. Mine.

But I guess I'm not superhuman, because after a while I'm tired. _Make it stop_, I think. But of course it won't stop. This is the Games, and I'm Cato trying to fight off scores of mutts. The audience wants a good show. I keep going until I just can't stand up any longer. When I finally sink to the ground, it's for the last time.

I'm not even aware of anything after. All I know is that I'm no longer Cato who killed the majority of the tributes. Instead I've been reduced to begging for the pain to go away. It's bad enough watching everyone you've killed come to life, in the form of a ferocious mutt. Tearing your skin and chunks of your flesh away. It's agony. I can't bear it anymore, and all I can do is moan. They work away at my limbs and my head, biting it, snuffing it, clamping their teeth onto my skin. I think I see blood on the ground. That's mine.

It hurts, hurts so much. I get the sense of being rotated around, and a new mutt pounces on me. The dark coat and those haunting eyes...Clove. Clove, who are you now? Why are you doing this to me?

She sinks her claws into my arm, and I feel excruciating pain where she bites it repeatedly. Clove, stop! Stop, please! A strangled moan escapes my lips, but it only seems to spur Clove on even more. She gnaws, bites, destroys me in every sadistic way, until it's just too much to bear. Do it. Clove, just kill me. Kill me.

I never thought I would ever ask Twelve for a favour. But now in my moment of despair, I do. It's all I can do to look up and say "Please". And the look I see in her eyes is not mocking, but pitiful. The arrow is aimed at my skull, and I hear it fly towards me.

Clove, in mutt form. The last thing that crosses my field of vision. Claws at my face.


End file.
